The game is an intense touch shooter with a huge narrative that we had to make 2 different apps to contain. You can get either of the apps or both and have some fun, but they work together in what we think are pretty interesting ways. Now that the game is in Closed Beta most of the main details are out there, I thought I'd start up a new thread to introduce it. Here's the rundown:

Launching a few weeks before Midnight Star is a graphic novel app that takes players on the pre-adventure of the main character, 2nd Lt. Charlie Campbell, as he gets ready to embark on the mission to investigate an alien signal (spoiler alert: the mission goes terribly). It's written by John Scalzi in his first comics outing and illustrated from top-to-bottom by former DC star Mike Choi.The "comic" is a fully interactive adventure, where readers will explore panels for texture about what Earth is like 120 years from now, make choices on Charlie's behalf that affect the story in the game and earn all sorts of in-game rewards from reading the story.

A shooter built from the ground up for mobile on Unreal Engine 3 with native touch controls, asynchronous multiplayer and community features woven into the experience in all sorts of cool ways.

Some moar features:

[] Intense action - intelligent enemies, deep shooting mechanics, chain-sniping, multiple victory conditions
[] "Self-service" story where you can get as into the narrative as you like-- or not
[] Trophy system where rewards are achieved community-wide daily, weekly, monthly and for all-time
[] EVERYTHING levels (you, the guns, the achievements, the rooms on the ship, everything)

I appreciate that, geno. We're working on video snippets right now, but have kept it close to get all of our effects and final art and all of that goodness nice and tight (that's a long-winded way of saying "coming soon" and I'll post it here when we start releasing footage).

For explanation, here's a good description on character movement from the first preview we did a little while ago:

"For the most part, you don’t directly control the movement of Morning Star’s hero Charlie Campbell. He moves through each bite-sized challenge (each of the game’s 28 levels is comprised of four 60-90 second chunks) on his own, similar to a rail shooter. But Midnight Star’s principal innovation is that enemy AI isn’t scripted - it reacts dynamically to your equipped weapon, how quickly or slowly their buddies have been taken out, and more. One playthrough they might run for cover, and the next they might charge directly at you.

You do have some control over where Charlie directs his attention via innovative threat markers on the left and right of the screen. These buttons indicate how many enemies are hiding (or have fled) off-screen, and how close they are to attacking. Tapping a threat button shifts the camera to point in that direction, creating a hybrid on/off-rails experience."

One of our key challenges is that the game is looking great and playing great, but simply watching a video feed of gameplay doesn't tell the input story. So we're experimenting with ways to get that across. That said, we WILL have it soon!

Actually, you can see a bit more gameplay in this: we just posted the 7th episode in the making-of documentary series on the game. This one is on the music (System of a Down's Serj Tankian is our composer). You can hear a bunch of his soundtrack for the game on this as well get some more shots of the game (please forgive the debug text on it!)

Is there any sort of release date? And by four 90 second burst across 28 levels, does that mean it'll be 2-3 hour long game?

1) No release date just yet. We're in a Closed Beta and will be opening up the testing in the coming weeks, but won't be able to target a release date until we get a little further (I realize that's like saying "soon," but the good news is that it's playing great in the Beta and we're locking in on remaining bugs and shine).

2) It's designed to be infinitely replayable, but yes-- just the 1P Campaign, if you played it straight through without dying, would be several hours. However, because of the AI, everytime you play a map, it's different. And there are 5 different ways to play every map. And multiplayer challenges on your favorite maps, and...

Here's a shot of the "Encounter Summary" screen, where you get info on how you did along the top. The bottom tray you see there is scrollable horizontally and tells you where you are in relation to your friends or those you're following as well as where you are in the race for gold in a Challenge. You also get any Achievements you've earned and info on all of the stats you recorded.

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